My favourite initiative system is from Star Trek Adventures, as there is no strict initiative order. Instead, players choose and strategise among themselves who will go first among the players in that round. After that turn, play goes to the enemy NPC that the GM chooses. Then players pick their next player. Play continues to ping-pong until every npc and player has had a turn, and then a new round begins with players selecting a new 'first' player. Also, at any point the players (or GM) can spend 'momentum' (points they accrue through the game in various ways) to keep the initiative on their side and have two players act immediately one after the other. It's all super cinematic, and it lets the players coordinate some very fluid attack plans.

2E, D10 group initiative for both sides, add weapon/spell/action speeds, lowest goes first. Reroll every round. I have every player hold a stack of note cards. They write the number down big with black Sharpie every round and put it on the table. Visualization speeds it all up.

@tygereyes

6 ай бұрын

Someone wrote it already 2E everyone rolls d10 every round of combat and you when in order from lowest to highest.

Among others, In my latest session, I used the whenever-you-come-up-with-something-you-wanna-do-tell-me initiative system. It was a blast and worked like a charm!

Around 3 years ago I switched to dynamic initiative in 5e, where everyone rerolls initiative at every round, and I've never looked back since. It's a great tool to enhance tactical gameplay and we had a lot of fun! Most of the typical problems started to fade (ie: healing word, stunning fist) while many underused abilities begin to shine. I am a lover of big, sometimes field-battle combats for tipping points of the story, and it can be a chore to reroll everyone, so i used an android app when we play live, or a foundry addon for VTT. But i tell you, it's 100% worth! We had 2 high level campaigns in 5e, where we ended at lvl14 and 18 respectively. It's well after the point of the game where you need to start making changes to content, fine tune spells, rework monsters to be actually challenging: otherwise everything will crumble. In that mess, having dynamic initiative kept things fresh and interesting.

A system I've been toying with conceptually but haven't had a chance to playtest fir the system I've been working on in my freetime is that if a character is attacked they can sacrifice all their actions that turn save for an attack to retaliate immediately and that permanently shifts their placement in the turn order

Great job

I haven't tried it yet, but what I'd like to start doing for games that use initiative is just for everyone to roll for their order at the beginning of the session and that same order is kept until the session is over. Maybe have one re-roll per session if any issues pop up

The system of initiative I use depends on the game I'm using. Some do not have or need initiative. Some have phases. Some require action declaration. Some allow multiple choices. My ideal system would be some sort of individual initiative generation with penalties for the side that happens to be ambushed, if and when it gets to act. It tends to become cumbersome with multiple combatants, but allows for more complex tactical fighting. I really liked the phase initiative system from Combat and Tactics, in the revised AD&D 2nd Edition.

The one initiative system I like most is from one of the last videos on the Taking 20 channel. 1. All the players roll their initiative as normal. 2. The DM rolls one initiative for the boss or for the highest initiative npc. 3. The players and the one enemy initiative are sorted, and then all the other enemies in the encounter are slotted between player turns that come after the boss. Player Boss Player Enemy Player Enemy Etc... It works well enough that I don't look for other initiative systems.

I have the players roll initiative. Monsters and NPCs have a Passive Initiative which acts as a DC - so if a player matches the DC, they succeed and go before the monster. Martials, weapon using monsters, and predators add their Proficiency Bonus to their Initiative.

I simply pre-roll and prep the initiatives for all my possible encounters. I only need the players to roll for thier characters. I showed my pre-prepped encounter sheets in a video.

I'm running an OSE campaign right now and thought I preferred the Individual initiative (been playing that way since back in the day - '79), but since recently switching, I have kind of grown to like group initiative.

@Diego_Winterborg

6 ай бұрын

I use an AD&D d10 group initiative as well. It runs super smooth and gives both players and monsters very good opportunity to coordinate and play an extremely tactical game. Skips the party's initiative reordering face and lets the just do what has to be done without juggling around the changing individual initiatives. And maybe the best thing is that everyone pays attention, no waiting around for 15 minutes until your next turn.

I like systems with no initiative. There are several where monsters never roll, rather players. Or games like MotW, where player and monster are simultaneous and can help prevent action economy.

When the initiative order gets to big, I go highest initiative and the clockwise or counter clockwise from there.

I kitbashed it and scrapped the initiative system. Old slow and clunky. I call for missiles or magic and than melee. Combat is quick and chaotic now. ~ Brian

@andrewlustfield6079

6 ай бұрын

I'm slightly more in depth Replacing initiative experiment: New Combat Order of attacks. No initiative dice are rolled. Once combat is joined, combat goes in this order. Combatants with similar weapons or attacks go at the same time. 1. Initial missile attacks: bows and crossbows, then thrown weapons such as spears, hand axes, daggers, etc. 2. Magic: Wands, staves, rods, rings and other items with stored spells go first, then cast spells, and finally spells read off scrolls are declared. 3. Melee & middle missile attacks: Weapons with the longest reach will go first-This order will repeat for character with multiple attacks unless circumstances dictate otherwise-for instance the party is in a very tight press and long weapons are too unwieldy. • Pole weapons that are 8+ ft. (pikes excluded for obvious reasons) • Long weapons: Two handed swords, great axes (Dane axes), pole axes, 6’ spears, quarter staff, etc. • Medium weapons: Bastard swords, long swords, maces, any one-handed weapon between three and four feet long. • Short weapons: Short swords, clubs, daggers, iron spikes, • rocks, fists, claws, bites, etc. 4. Cast magic: Cast spells and spells cast from scrolls take effect. (Roll spell craft and religion checks are made now.) 5. End of round missile fire: bows and crossbows, then thrown weapons such as spears, hand axes, daggers, etc.

I disagree with Mark re: batch initiative; it simply doesn't work for DnD. My game uses it specifically to *add* to the tactics and heroic feels. It makes sense in cinematic/puzzly combats, but would be a dumpster fire in anything with 12 Fireballs 😅 I'd assume any encounter like that is... well, bad. That *sounds* like a TPK, not a PC 'challenge'.

Im currently designing a system where we roll every round. I know this is going to make people VERY angry, but hear me out. The players roll and keep their initiative to themselves. The system also relies on what your character can pay attention to, there is only one action and most of them are deadly. This is proving to build a REaction economy, and an attention economy. If you run out of either, consequences happen. As a GM, all I have to focus on is the current event. Initiative goes to about nine at most, so i can start off a round with: "the bandit goes on 7", one or more players may say "then I go first". Repeat this process until you run out of enemies. I do not care about player order, I only care if they are before or after x initiative count. That let's me only run enemies, players can run players.

Hard disagree with Mark. I am all OSR, and I love Group Initiatibe (or, as he calls it, "batch initiative"). I feel it is far superior, and allows me to handle large combats and/or multiple combats very efficiently.

@kivekkulat5114

6 ай бұрын

Yeah I feel like the batch combat should work and gm just needs to know to adjust the encounter to not abuse the mechanic to wipe the party.

Someone needs to tell Games Workshop that "I go, you go" is HORRIBLE game design.

WOW! Usually I think Stephen and Mark are pretty savvy, when speaking about RPGs. This time however... WOW! 01:00 - 01:35 was imply ridiculous and inane. That is not an example of a bad initiative system. That is an example of bad encounter design. It is no news, that you can set up "easy" monsters to cause a TPK. 12 fireball slinging monsters are likely to cause a TPK regardless of what initiative system you are using. And later 03:05 - 03:40 Stephen goes on to praise players who do a reordering of their initiative??? That is a staple of experienced players not something that can come as a surprise to anyone. Skip the reordering with the constant delay/ready stratagems, and just use group initiative. Group initiative can be extremely tactical if your players are tactical, and speeds op the process in remarkable ways. WOW! Stephen and Mark, that was some pretty baseless and unnuanced remarks about initiative that reveal a huge blind spot in your understanding of RPG combat. Why you would make this cut out is beyond me. Unless it is meant as a blooper!